Missing V2 beta changes: Cavalry one rank turn 180 and move

[batesmotel]

In V2, it appears that cavalry/light chariots in a single rank are able to turn 180 degrees, make a simple advance of up to 2 MU and then turn about again as a complex move. In the beta they also had the option to do a 180 degree turn, and then do a simple advance (with some limit on distance) without turning about at the end. So why is the capability to do this now completely absent? At a minimum, it seems that the face about at the end of the 2 MU complex move now allowed should be optional, not mandatory.

Chris

[nikgaukroger]

It was taken away to avoid adding in a "Benny Hill" mechanism.

[kevinj]

I'd noticed this and had intended to check how it was in the Beta. I think it makes skirmishing with cavalry much less effective as their options after an evade are now just turn or run away, which in itself could lead to a Benny Hill situation. At the very least it is anomalous that a BG can make 2 turns and move, but not 1. Also, for troops who can do it, it's the only turn and move that doesn't have a movement penalty.

[nikgaukroger]

In v2 Cv are better at skirmishing than they were in v1 due to the fall back facing the enemy - the situation after an evade is as per v1.

[kevinj]

But skirmishing with cavalry is likely to be only practical until the first evade, after that they need to be prepared to fight, or keep running. In order for the tactic to be viable they need to be able to adjust the distance when they turn around.

[zoltan]

I've found in a bunch of recent games that using irregular cav to skirmish is way too risky. Once you are in front of enemy at 3 MU shooting and relying on passing the CMT to drop back 2MUs each move, your cav BGs are committed. Fail the CMT and you will be charged and either forced to evade (with a reasonable chance of being caught) or standing to fight (with a reasonable chance if being butchered). So HF advancing against a skirmish line can easily push it off the table in a 3 hour game.

Without being to turn 180 degrees and run away the cav now have no viable option to stop skirmishing with HF and pull out unless they accept a charge, survive, break off a dull 5MU and in their next move turn 90 dgrees and move away 3 MU to end over 3 MU from the HF.

[hazelbark]

We debated and tested this a good bit. I know i posted a number of games we tried it.

The idea of not allowing the scoot back and face plus the turn 180 and move full was it made skirmishing cavalry too powerful.
The power of the skirmisher to always be able to return after an evade to the optimum range was just ridiculously powerful in the beta. So back then we said you can't give them both without making their evade highly risky. The authors made a decision.

If they had both, no one would bring non shooty cav. It was way out of balance.

[batesmotel]

But making the face back at the end of the turn 180 and move 2 MU would not have been as powerful as the turn 180 and move full while also giving skirmishing cavalry a bit better chance to disengage.

Chris

[hazelbark]

But making the face back at the end of the turn 180 and move 2 MU would not have been as powerful as the turn 180 and move full while also giving skirmishing cavalry a bit better chance to disengage.

I know we spent like 2-3 months and like 4-7 full games on this just in my club. Others I don't remember. We vomited forth our observations and the authors picked through the entrails and made a decision.

But I await the paper rules to see what they say.

[nikgaukroger]

But making the face back at the end of the turn 180 and move 2 MU would not have been as powerful as the turn 180 and move full while also giving skirmishing cavalry a bit better chance to disengage.

I know we spent like 2-3 months and like 4-7 full games on this just in my club. Others I don't remember. We vomited forth our observations and the authors picked through the entrails and made a decision.

But I await the paper rules to see what they say.

The feedback from Dan's group was highly influential in the decision making, and we were very grateful indeed for their input and dedication to testing

FWIW my personal testing suggested to me that the way we went in the end is a material improvement for shooty Cv over v1 without being too good as the last beta was.

[nikgaukroger]

So HF advancing against a skirmish line can easily push it off the table in a 3 hour game.

As the inability of HF to affect skirmishers in any material way was a big complaint about v1 that v2 aimed to correct I'm OK with this - us flighty Cv types will need to use our brains now when faced by a lot of HF; IMO this is a good thing and makes things more interesting. YMMV.

[hazelbark]

I've found in a bunch of recent games that using irregular cav to skirmish is way too risky. Once you are in front of enemy at 3 MU shooting and relying on passing the CMT to drop back 2MUs each move, your cav BGs are committed. Fail the CMT and you will be charged and either forced to evade (with a reasonable chance of being caught) or standing to fight (with a reasonable chance if being butchered). So HF advancing against a skirmish line can easily push it off the table in a 3 hour game.

Without being to turn 180 degrees and run away the cav now have no viable option to stop skirmishing with HF and pull out unless they accept a charge, survive, break off a dull 5MU and in their next move turn 90 dgrees and move away 3 MU to end over 3 MU from the HF.

Which is good. Now Cav can still mass against protected defensive spear.
even superior protecte bw/sw 2x4s gives you 3 shooting dice. odds are slightly over 50% you get a -1 CT. But you are likely to have a CT. A few chances and the defensive spear get disrupted. Then it is an uncomfortable position for the defensive spear.

But that makes it interesting. So the spear needed some combination of generals, rear supprt, fire brigade to avoid a catastrophic results from just a mildly bad die roll. Now this is twice as many points achieve the breakthrough. But it is a more interesting dynamic.

[kevinj]

OK, if there was plenty of playtesting experience that it was too powerful that's great. It wasn't our experience, but it's not an area we focussed on.

One outsanding question though - Why no reduction in movement for the Turn 180 and move option for Light Foot/Horse?

[nikgaukroger]

One outsanding question though - Why no reduction in movement for the Turn 180 and move option for Light Foot/Horse?

Can't recall exactly, however, I seem to recall that it caused issues with LF and was actually slowing things down because of them. There may not have been such with LH but we would have wanted to avoid an exception and keep things clean by keeping both LF and LH the same in this respect. Deeper deployment areas and the ability to match to 4MU from skirmishers also probably played a part in the overall assessment.

[hazelbark]

OK, if there was plenty of playtesting experience that it was too powerful that's great. It wasn't our experience, but it's not an area we focussed on.

It was one area that we were very keen on and tested the heck out of it. It "felt" right from an understanding of how we mythologize the horse archer working. But it was just awesome. We couldn't get lancers to successfully catch the horse archers without basically allocating your entire army to chase 3 BGs of protected superior bw/cv. Which left the opponents army to swing about and concentrate. We played some games then we started both playing the non-shooting cav like a clinic, discusssing how we would try to bring the shooty cav to heel. And our conclusion was you needed shooty cav to engage shooty cav. Our club is a big fan of the shooty cav both in game and historial terms and we concluded it was so powerful that there was no point in playing the game if that all stay in. Literally at the end we concluded that you need to sacrifice a LH unit to engage an evader and hoped it held on for impact and 2 melees so you you could then catch up with your real cavalry. That just seemed like a dumb ahistorical game.